101 Google Answer Boxes: A Journey into the Knowledge&nbspGraph

At MozCon last month, I gave a talk titled "Beyond 10 Blue Links" that included 85 screenshots of Google SERP features that went beyond the traditional organic listing:

I purposely tried to overwhelm people and to show just how much the landscape is changing, but the truth is that this was just one part of the big picture. So, I'd like to take a deeper journey today – a trip through Google's "answer box" – to show not only how SERPs are changing, but how the answer box reveals the direction and power of Google's Knowledge Graph.

What's an answer box?

An "answer box" is a SERP feature, usually displayed in a light-gray box, that occurs above the organic results (left column) and tries to directly answer a question. For example, if you were wondering what a "SERP" is and Googled "define serp", you'd see this:

Most answer boxes are primarily text, contain a relatively short answer (when possible), and may give limited information about the source of the answer. Seeing is believing, so let's jump right in.

(I) People & Relationships

Everybody loves celebrities, right? According to the supermarket checkout aisle, they're just better than the rest of us. Let's start with some answer boxes about people.

1. "Is Justin Timberlake married"

Sorry, ladies (and gentleman, depending on your persuasion), the short answer is: "yes". This same wedding also took Jessica Biel off the market – I feel like the government should have gotten involved.

2. "Ben Stiller's dad"

You can also check out other relationships, like famous parents:

3. "Jerry Stiller's kids"

Some relationships are many-to-one. Here's an answer box with richer content:

4. "How tall was Abraham Lincoln"

Was Abe really that tall, or were all the other Old-Timey people just really short, so he seemed tall by comparison? Turns out, he was pretty tall.

5. "How old is Bryan Adams"

So, the other day, I'm listening to "Summer of '69" and I started wondering how old Bryan Adams actually was in 1969. Turns out, he was barely 10 years old, and he wants us to believe he started a band? I'm on to you, Bryan Adams!

16. "Gandhi Bacon number"

(II) Athletes & Sports

Athletes are people, too, or so ESPN tells me. The sports realm has a number of unique answer boxes.

17. "How much does Beckham make"

Oddly, this seems uniquely available to athletes, for the most part. No word on what Victoria Beckham is cashing in these days.

18. "Kobe Bryant's number"

When you need to settle a bar bet, answer boxes look good on mobile, too.

19. "Peyton Manning's team"

In case you're like me, and occasionally get the Manning brothers confused...

20. "Where is Tiger"

The format isn't quite your typical answer box, but this is a great example of just how much Google is interpreting queries. Note that this only appears near active tournament dates (hat tip to @scheidja)

Fun fact: We originally saw this for "Where is Roger", and it brought up results for Roger Federer. Of course, we all know that there's only one Roger.

21. "Cubs score"

If you're a Cubs fan, like me, and in perpetual need of torturing yourself, Google's got you covered:

22. "NL Central standings"

You can also access division/league stats for many pro sports. Keep in mind that these are seasonal, and only seem to appear during the active season for any particular sport.

23. "Cubs schedule"

Here's an expanding schedule of upcoming games:

24. "Where do the Yankees play"

If you're really new to the sports world, fear not – there's an answer box for you, too:

25. "How many seats at Yankee stadium"

26. "Stanley Cup champion"

27. "NHL Stanley Cup"

This isn't currently active, but during playoffs and championship series, you can see the entire schedule and historical scores:

28. "Tournament brackets"

For March Madness 2013, Google launched an entire bracketology feature (not currently active):

(III) Landmarks & Places

People shouldn't have all the fun. Places have feelings, too. Ok, they don't have feelings, but they do have answer boxes.

29. "Who built Wrigley Field"

Historical data is available for many major landmarks:

30. "When was the Empire State Building built"

Did you realize that the first skyscraper didn't exist until after the elevator was invented? People are lazy.

31. "How tall is the Space Needle"

It's been just over 50 years since someone thought: "Let's put a UFO on a stick!"

32. "How many floors is the Sears Tower"

It'll always be the Sears Tower to me, unless we also get the Arnold Tower and Mr. Drummond Tower. Then, I might come around.

33. "Population of Chicago"

Some answer boxes have specialized, rich content. This population trend graph is one of the more interesting ones:

34. "Size of Chicago"

You probably never actually wondered this, but I got a little crazy writing this post:

35. "Chicago unemployment rate"

Not one of our happier stats, but definitely an interesting, rich answer box:

36. "Seattle weather"

When I'm packing for the home office, this comes in handy. Google has all but taken over this space from the major weather sites. If you want local weather, you can just search "weather" or "temperature".

37. "Seattle Mayor"

When I need to study up on my second home, Google's there for me:

38. "Washington Governor"

There seem to be answer boxes for most major local, state, and Federal offices.

39. "Capital of Washington"

Note to self: Seattle is not the capital of Washington.

40. "Washington state flower"

You know what Illinois' state flower is? The violet. Way to overcomplicate things, Washington.

41. "Washington state bird"

Why was learning this stuff so important in school? No one has ever jumped out of an alley and shouted "Quick, what's your state bird?!"

42. "Canada languages"

What language do they speak in Canadia? It's Canadese, right?

43. "Canadian currency"

Also, they have money in Canada. Who knew?

44. "Canadian Prime Minister"

It's like they're a real country. FYI: you have to actually know the proper form of government to get this answer box – "Canadian President" and "Canadian head honcho" don't work.

45. "Mexico dialing code"

If you need to call your friends across either border, Google makes it easier for you:

46. "How big is the Pacific Ocean"

"Pretty damned big" would also have been an acceptable answer.

47. "How old is the world"

You can ask questions about just about anything georgraphic, including the entire earth (hat-tip to @zafeuer).

48. "Radius of Saturn"

Then again, why restrict yourself to earth-based factoids?

49. "How far is Saturn"

Ok, I meant "How far is Saturn from the earth", but this just goes to show you that Google still has a few kinks to work out (hat-tip to @IAmPhilSharp).

50. "How far is Saturn from the sun"

Sometimes, you just have to be specific. Oddly, distance from the earth is not available, but distance from the sun is.

51. "How far to Seattle"

Of course, the "how far" answer box does have legitimate uses. I wonder this every time I get a "Free Cupcakes" email from the office (which is about 17 times per day).

52. "Who discovered Neptune"

Here's a people and planets crossover answer box. Apparently, it took a lot of people to find Neptune.

Fun fact: John "Couch" Adams was the lesser known and lazier brother of our 6th president, John Quincy Adams.

(IV) Conversions & Calculators

Questions about numbers and units often yield interactive answer boxes. Here's a list of conversion and calculator features.

53. "How big is an acre"

Building on our geography queries, you can easily convert units of area:

54. "70 Fahrenheit to Celsius"

This one's handy for the MozCast followers out there (don't worry, building this in is definitely on our to-do list):

55. "5 years in hours"

This is how long I spent in graduate school. Funny, it felt like at least 50,000 hours.

56. "How many millimeters in a cubit"

Some questions yield direct answers, and not a conversion box. It could have something to do with no one under the age of 103 ever measuring things in cubits.

57. "Bits in a terabyte"

Here's a conversion calculator for us geeks. My first hard drive was 10 MB. Now, you can get a 1 TB external HD for $79.99. By the time I finish this post, they'll be $39.99.

58. "Dollars to Euros"

Google completely took over currency conversion queries. You can also just search for "currency converter".

59. "What is the speed of light"

Some specific scientific values have direct answer boxes. You can also look up mathematical constants, like "pi" and "Euler's constant".

60. "7 * 6"

Enter a mathematical expression, and you'll get a scientific calculator answer box. Expressions can be pretty elaborate, including parentheses.

61. "Answer to life the universe and everything"

Of course, if 42 is really the answer you want, then you should be asking the right question.

62. "sin(x)"

Enter a function or complex equation, and you'll get back a two-dimensional graph.

63. "sin(x)+cos(y)"

With the right multivariate equations, you can trigger a three-dimensional graph.

64. "How many calories in a taco"

Finally, the most important calculator of all: the taco calculator. Ok, it's actually the nutrition calculator. Sadly, Google will not answer the question "How good is cheese?"

(V) Dates & Times

We covered a few date-based answer boxes in the people section (like birthdates), but that's just the tip of the iceberg for date and time questions.

65. "When is Thanksgiving"

You can easily find the dates of many upcoming holidays, although a few minor holidays seem to be missing.

66. "When was Hanukkah"

In some cases, you can query the last occurrence of a holiday. Google also shows ranges for events that cover multiple dates.

67. "Mothers Day 2020"

Add a year to get the dates for future holidays. The year 2020 was as far ahead as I could get Google to currently go, but this may vary depending on the event.

68. "Fall Equinox"

This is the proper form of the question "What happened to summer?!".

69. "Time"

Google is personalizing more answer boxes, and queries like "time" work now. If you want the time in another location, enter sometimg like "local time Seattle".

70. "Sunrise Seattle"

On the days when Seattle actually has sun, Google will tell you when that alleged sun rises and sets.

71. "Timer 5 minutes"

Forget your stopwatch (and your iPhone, and your tablet...)? You can set a timer of just about any length directly through a search query. Added bonus: The alert is more obnoxious than a late-80s car alarm.

72. "Length of Martian day"

Don't you hate it when you've got a call scheduled with Martian clients and... ok, I really have no idea why you'd ever need this.

(VI) Movies, Media, & More

You can't spell "celebrity" without "le brit", which is French for "The British". Ok, half of that's not true, and none of it is relevant. Here are some answer boxes about stuff celebrities do.

73. "When was Star Wars released"

Here's a query I run when I want to feel l old. I was almost seven, for the record (hat-tip to @adamcarson).

74. "Who directed The 300"

I ask Google this question about twice a week, just to make sure I never watch any more of his movies.

75. "The 300 sequel"

Unfortunately, Google has no regard for my feelings:

76. "The Dark Knight rating"

Is it too early to let my 3-year-old watch the latest Batman saga? Ok, yeah, it probably is.

77. "Rocky writer"

Did you know that Stallone not only wrote the script to Rocky, but he did it in three days? Give Sly a little credit.

78. "James Bond movies"

Here's a slightly odd one – a not even remotely complete list of Bond films:

79. "Narnia movie list"

The much shorter Narnia series gets a complete list, including thumbnails. Other queries, like "Harry Potter movies" generate a Knowledge Graph carousel. Google seems to be experimenting.

80. "When did The Simpsons debut"

Purists will probably note that The Simpsons actually debuted on the Tracey Ullman show in 1987. This is why purists have no friends (hat-tip to @adamcarson).

81. "Super Friends final episode"

Farewell, Zan, Jayna, and Gleek. We hardly knew thee.

82. "Sunny in Philadelphia network"

The curse of TiVo is that I honestly have no idea when any show airs or what channel it's on.

83. "Greatest American Hero theme song"

"Believe it or not, I'm walking on air. I never thought I could feel so FREE-EE-EEE..." You're welcome.

84. "Honey Boo Boo genre"

When I want to remember which genre never to watch, I run this search. Ok, so I watch Top Chef. And Top Chef: Masters. And The Voice. And Pimp My Ride. STOP JUDGING ME!

85. "Harry Potter author"

Once upon a time, there were these things called books. Don't worry – there's an app for that now.

86. "Grand Theft Auto 5 release"

If you can't wait for whatever it is you kids can't wait for these days, then here you go (hat-tip to @KrisRoadruck).

87. "Wicked composer"

It's not quite as great as coming up at the top of "wicked awesome composer," but I'm still pretty jealous.

(VII) Companies & Brands

For all the talk of big brands dominating the SERPs, it's surprising how few of them currently have Knowledge Graph data. Here are a few examples of brand answer boxes.

88. "Amazon stock"

Google's rich stock ticker answer box is probably one of the most obvious examples of company-related data:

89. "When was Microsoft founded"

You can get direct answers for a few questions about major companies, including their founding date (hat-tip to @wilreynolds).

90. "Amazon founder"

This is also the new answer to "Who owns the Washington Post?" (although that doesn't get an answer box).

91. "Samsung headquarters"

You can look up the corporate headquarters for many large companies.

92. "Best Buy customer service"

Finally, a few companies pull up customer service phone numbers, but this data seems fairly spotty.

(VIII) Miscellaneous

Here are a few answer boxes that didn't fit neatly into any of my other categories.

93. "UA 241"

Want your flight status in about 17 clicks less than it takes on the airlines' sites? Just search your flight number.

94. "Flights to Seattle"

This isn't technically an answer box (See the "Sponsored" notification in the upper-right), but it goes to show how much the line between organic and paid content is starting to blur.

95. "Define googol"

Some words will pull up definitions in an answer box. Google may be testing an even richer definition box, which includes word origins and usage data.

96. "Search in mandarin"

Translation is available for some terms, but the implementation is inconsistent at best.

97. "Mono symptoms"

Google has experimented heavily in the health/medical niche. Here's a detailed symptoms answer box that pulls data from three major health sites.

98. "Cancer treatment"

I'm not sure cancer treatment can or should be summed up in a couple of paragraphs, but Google is apparently going to try.

99. "Poison control"

This doesn't fit the typical format of an answer box, but here's a situation where people obviously can benefit from a quick answer.

100. "How fast is an F-22 Raptor"

A few vehicles have statistics available in answer boxes. I would have expected more cars (especially high-end models) to have them, but I've mostly found aircraft data (hat-tip to @scheidja).

101. "Boeing 787 engine"

Here's one I wouldn't expect to have an answer box – the engines on a Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

The Knowledge Graph Connection

So, where do these answer boxes come from? Some, like stock tickers and weather charts, are clearly custom designed and can involve exclusive data partnerships. When it comes to the factoids, though, most of these answers come directly from Google's Knowledge Graph.

Let's go back to the very first example. Here's a portion of the Knowledge Graph entry for Justin Timberlake:

Notice the circled factoid, which just happens to match our first answer box. So, let's try a little experiment. Let's pick something you've probably never searched for: as a kid, I had a fascination with the Red Baron, who flew a plane called the Fokker Dr.I. If you search for "Fokker Dr.I", you'll see this KG entry:

So, what if we picked a factoid, like the Fokker's wingspan? Sure enough, if you search Google for "Fokker Dr.I wingspan", you get this answer box:

"Fokker Dr.I top speed", "...length", and "...first flight" all return answer boxes, but, oddly, "...manufacturer" doesn't. I'd say that about 70-80% of the factoids I found in Knowledge Graph entries could be used to generate answer boxes, but sometimes Google was very picky about how the question was worded.

This all goes to show that the Knowledge Graph is much more than just an isolated box of information in the right-hand column. It's fundamentally changing the nature of organic results and driving many of Google's direct answers to questions. As KG continues to expand, it's going to be critical to understand how it impacts your money keywords.

It also goes to show that these 101 answer boxes are just a sampling of what's available in the wide world of Google's Knowledge Graph. Have any favorites of your own? Be sure to share them in the comments.

Truthfully I noticed the answer boxes in Google searches and never wondered "Where does that info come from?" At this point, I think I'm conditioned to simply believe that Google has all the answers to everything and I don't really question it. Kinda scary.

Number 32 in this list made me laugh so loud my kids came in the room and asked what was so funny. So I had to tell them about Diffr'ent Strokes. So there's that :)

Seriously though, there's an observer effect at play here, right? Google is going beyond supplying factual info (what I might have found in my 80's set of World Book Encyclopedias) and answering questions in a way that presumes to know *why* you are asking (see the example below of supplying helpline info). That's starting to be intrusive but I think we've been conditioned to like it.

Great post Dr Pete! I think the knowledge graph card that is probably the most important for all of us is the company/brand one. But what's interesting is when you see it display for a non-branded term. Just started noticing this recently.

Try Googling "Cloud Hosting" and you will see a brand card for Rackspace on the right with them ranking #1. Additionally, it has a drop down for other brands that are frequently searched and relevant to the query. We talk about how Google is rewarding big brands more than ever and I think this is the perfect example. I'm very curious to see how frequent this type of card will display in other queries and markets.

I've got a post going up Thursday about how there was a big increase in the number of queries showing these "brand cards" around July 19th (+50%) in our 10K data set. Looks like Google is turning up the volume on those.

#99 reminded me of one that someone shared recently - if you Google "i want to kill myself", in the UK you get the message: "Need help? In the United Kingdom, call 08457 90 90 90 - Samaritans". I think that's a really smart use of an answer box, where timing would be absolutely critical and - quite literally - a matter of life or death.

I'd also love to know if certain big sites have seen a slight knock in organic traffic levels. For example, IMDb would probably rank well for #73-79, yet Google beats them to punch and answers the searcher's question before they even get the chance to visit any of the sites in the SERP. It's probably not catastrophic, but I wouldn't be surprised if they've seen a slight decline due to the presence of answer boxes.

Oh and one more thing... Surely you've watched Watchmen? If that doesn't restore your faith in Mr Snyder then I suppose nothing will... ;-)

I have to imagine that the kind of sites that used to provide lists of holidays, currency conversion, etc., are being crushed by some of these answer boxes. If the answer is right there, and it's definitive, why would you even click on links? Of course, most of those are small, ad-driven sites. What I'd love to know is how this has impacted the big sports sites, weather sites, etc.

Siri is already tied into this as well. Google's version of siri will undoubtedly tap more into this. I think social media has shown us all the power very little (lengthwise) information can be, but still have a whole bunch of meaning or answering ability. Mobile also will feed heavily of short reliable information that is all going to tie together greatly in the coming years. Time to start preparing for a real next generation search engine much more interactive features much more reasoning and intelligent search queries. Probably not to far off from a major shakeup up of how things currently work

The reason there isn't an answer for how far Saturn is from Earth is probably because it changes every day due to the different orbits. I could see them doing closest and farthest distances at some point though.

There are some comments that you made, suggests that even the #1 spot in SERP is not going to get the CTR that in normal search receive.

Doesn't it mean that google is killing the the websites like (if not completely at present will be in future) yahoo answers and other similar?

Who will visit the website containing the related answers if someone find it on KG?

I think google has no any data of his own rather it collects all the data from the millions and billions of websites on the web, Suppose I have developed a great website with factual data and google is picking the data from my website to show in Knowledge Graph. Now my question is WHAT I RECEIVED IN RETURN? The answer is a simple NOTHING (not even a visit), since google has already shown through the KG (displaying my website's data).

Is it not an injustice to my page that was the main source of the information?

In my opinion at least google should show the reference where it has picked the data from (with a link to that page as it do in normal SERP). This way the source page has a chance to be visited if not definite.

I general, I tend to agree with you, but in the case of Knowledge Graph, the data currently seems to be coming from a fairly small number of databases and direct partnerships. For the most part, these answers aren't being scraped from individual websites. Google is not very transparent about the sources, though (and I think that's a legitimate complaint).

They still do quite a bit better with interpreting natural language, it seems, and trying to answer questions they don't have canned answers for, but even if Google can do half of what Wolfram Alpha does, that half plus their core search tips the balance way too much. Honestly, I'm not that happy about it, because we need real competition in the space badly.

The variety and quality of information available in Google searches is quickly rivaling that of Wolfram Alpha. I recently discovered the Knowledge Graph is a lot of fun when you speak your questions into a Google search from a tablet or phone because it speaks the answers back to you. For example, if you ask for the spouse of a famous person who has been married several times, it will say "[Person's] spouses include, Wife A, from these dates, Wife B, from these dates, and others"

The downside to all of this for website owners, of course, is that any answer Google satisfies itself means fewer clicks and hits for us. To be honest, though, a lot of these basic informational searches used to pull up sites that were thrown together just to get ad views by answering such simple questions, not adding much value (how many times have you googled for a simple question and tried to find the answer in a description without clicking on a site anyway?).

But on the other hand, Google seems to be relentlessly expanding its knowledge into deeper and deeper things, and maybe it's not fair that it seems to be grabbing a lot of this information from other websites and then effectively rewarding them by eliminating all their traffic... There's definitely an uneasy tension here, and I have a feeling it's not going to go away anytime soon.

Tension is an understatement. If you can't afford to have Google take all your public data/content and turn it inside out and re-display it, you don't have a business. Scary, but a fact of life. Their ability to leverage their monopoly is even more powerful than Microsoft's at the height of Windows.

Very interesting, I can definitely tell that you put a lot of time into this post!

Today at work during a training session, my coworker googled "mens suites" as an example search. Interestingly enough "Mens Warehouse" shows up in the knowledge graph for this search along with their company info. They hold the #7 organic rank and #1 for PPC. What is your take on this?

Thanks for putting together so many examples, Dr. Pete! The answer boxes have definitely contributed to increased laziness for me, especially when scheduling long distance calls (e.g., "what time is it in san francisco?) and in the kitchen (e.g., "how many cups in a gallon?").

I'm sorry for your loss of Jessica Biel. This post made me giggle. I also feel like I learned a whole lot of trivia that will help my team stay the winning-est team in Kansas City. (Usually I'm just the chump with nice handwriting who writes our answers down but doesn't actually contribute answers, then partakes in the beer winnings.)

I liked this new idea of Google. it'll help people to find out exact answers of their query. I really enjoyed the whole post though I am excited to know about knowledge graph today through your article.

It's interesting some conversions don't work the same way changing directions: I've triggered an answer box query "How long is a mile" but not for "How long is a kilometer" (you can get it specifing "how long is a kilometer in miles").

You can also have answer box for famous people real names (ie. Nostradamus real name) or definitions for some letters (ie. "what is k", but not for "what is a").

I am a big fan of yours since long time. I always wait for your posts and read them very carefully. Initially when i got this article and started reading - i was in shock that what is this and why you are mentioning the things which is not our area of interest. Later i realized that we must know about the points which can be related to our topics in many other forms. You have done a very lengthy and time taken research and its appreciable.

Though the theme of the post is great but not feel like a typical DR Pete post. Sorry Pete, but that I feel. I am really a great fan of your posts and the way you look & analyze data. Regarding medical queries Google has clear information here https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2364942?p=g_symp and for some queries it gives a link to this page anchored to "how this works". For example when I search for headache it gives result like that but for toothache it gives organic result. I think they are testing such things to know about users satisfaction level. That's way they might not generalize the concept.

In my view, the only way to be in SERP is to provide really unique contents or the best possible way to serve the users.

Great stuff! However, isn't the answer Google provides for "five years in hours" wrong? I make the maths 365x24x5 which is 43800, not 43829.1.

Now, I know there are various factors that technically mean things aren't as simple as that (the Earth takes slightly longer than a year to orbit the sun) but Google hasn't been asked "how many hours will elapse between now and this day in 2018 - it has been asked how many hours there are in a period of five years, which is 43800. I mean, I am a bit hungover, but I'm not being totally stupid am I?

And I don't think I'm being overly picky either - if Google is presenting information as factual and itself as a primary source, then surely it has to make sure it gets it sums right?

Also, if you type in "Roger is in Quebec Translate to French" you will get an answer box with Roger au est au Quebec". As Dr. Pete pointed out in his MozCon presentation, there is a magical mix of Freebase, wikipedia, DBPedia and probably some other secret sauce ingredients going on. I've been playing around with it myself. I hope to have some results to share soon on just what that might be.

Awesome. I've been waiting for this post since your MozCon deck caught my eye. This should be a first stop destination for any SEO looking to get corporate buy-in to the notion that the modern role involves so much more than just the website. Hopefully this will open a lot of doors and ears!

Whoa - This is a huge list. I'm guessing that Google is collecting a lot of its knowledge graph data from schema.org markup. (Maybe?) But some of the KG boxes seem eerily like they were researched and written by a human. Can you give us more insight into how Google creates its knowledge graph and what marketers can do to become recognized and treated like an entity?

Most of the Knowledge Graph is coming from canned databases like Freebase, The CIA Fact Book, etc. At this point, as best we know, very little of it comes from markup, and very little of it is under our control as individual webmasters and SEOs. That's why the game is changing, IMO.

I believe this will be a rapidly changing environment as more sites implement Schema.org markup and provide more information into the KG. Google and Bing have made it clear they are hungry for structured data, and those entities that provide it will be rewarded in both the SERPs and KG (either immediately or very soon). The problem is providing comprehensive Schema.org is a major task, time consuming, and prone to error -- unless you automate the implementation of Schema.org.

So much fun to see...i haven't been asking enough questions I realize and need to change my ways here! I think it is the greatest thing to explore and will come back to check out each one later...the knowledge graph is important and relevant to our keywords...light bulb! many thanks!

I have run into some interesting problems with updating what Google serves in the Knowledge Graph. I changed the branding for a company on Wikipedia and on their website but 3 months later still no change (it was a slight change, 2 words removed).

Also, a month ago the KG for Dexter showed a "an american television show which specializes in anal raping" (I have a screenshot), I have no answer box connection but they changed it the next day. I don't know if someone reported it but I think Wikipedia entry had been 'punked' and it was an unfortunate collateral. It is an interesting question about how often the index and update Wiki info the the KG. Any insight?

I'm happy you took the time to do all this work. We really appreciate it! Some of those are really interesting. I always loved the conversions, calculator and timer. Didin't know I could find graphs too. Google is too awesome.

Great post! I'm really interested to see if or when Google will decide to answer questions based on location using the answer box. I did try looking for the closest Sonic by me, but alas, Google Places came up instead. With the rate at which localized SEO has taken priority, I have to imagine it's only a matter of time. I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on tihs.

I also use answer boxes all the time. I especially quick check for spelling,some math and translation, etc. But I actually never tried to deep research in what else can be found in the that way. Great. Thanks for sharing Dr-Pete.

From a tactical, SEO perspective, these answer boxes completely rewrite the SERP and will, in most cases, dramatically reduce the CTR of organic results, including #1. At first, these were the exceptions to the rule, but the tie-in to Knowledge Graph means that, IMO, no SERP is safe. This kind of thing is only going to expand, and it's vital that we understand how it impacts our competitive keywords.